My Name Is Now Mom

The weather has been absolutely beautiful here, which is great.  Except for the allergies.  There's so many blooms and so much cut grass...  Both DH and I have been sneezy and sniffly.  And while TerraDactyl is a decent sleeper, sneezes can be startling.  Pair the startle factor in with the fact that TerraDactyl is happiest when sleeping in someone's arms...  It can wreck havoc on the naps. Having a baby nap on you for hours can leave an impression... We're trying to get TerraDactyl more comfortable with napping on places other than a warm body, but it's slow going.  And it seems to feed the problem.  She's fussier when she doesn't nap enough and then it's harder to get her to sleep...  It's a vicious, vicious cycle.  But, she's still a happy baby. Smiling at daddy Actually, she's happiest on her changing pad.  I don't know if you've noticed, but most of my smiling baby pictures come immediately after changing a diaper.  She

How can you not love that smile?? TerraDactyl is enjoying the sunny weather.  It's warmer, so she's comfortable in just onesies most of the time.  She's maybe a little fussier than she used to be, but she's still happy.  And we're starting to get smiles in response to our smiles, not just random ones.  After the horrifying realization that we had NO chocolate chips at our house, DH bought some on the next grocery trip.  This should last us for a while... Did you notice that this is a four POUND bag?  Can you tell this grocery trip was to Costco?  I don't think we'll be running out of chocolate chips for some time now.  :) The cloth diapering experiment is still going strong.  We've gone through a few loads of laundry, we seem to be doing laundry every other day.  The weather's nice, so I've got them hanging outside so they dry extra fast.  What a load of diapers There's extra time involved with cloth diapering (washing

TerraDactyl and I had spent a not insignificant amount of time in the wee hours of Sunday night being waaay too alert.  She wasn't crying, just... wide eyed and observing the world.  I spent longer than I would have preferred bouncing on the exercise ball before she was willing to close her adorable eyes.  So when my dad and brother stopped by yesterday morning before leaving town, I ended up sleeping through a lot of their visit.  (Sorry guys!)  But TerraDactyl was up and ready to greet the day. Bright eyed and bushy tailed My cake has been gone for a few days now and I've had no dessert.  A very sad state.  I've been craving chocolate, so I figured I'd make myself chocolate chip cookies.  Another dessert easily made with staples I always have on hand.  ...Or so I thought.  Apparently, someone-not-me ate the last of the chocolate chips and did not put them on the grocery list!  It was a shocking realization for me.  I'd almost resigned myself to not gettin

This weekend has been a weekend of family visits!  My mom, sister, and nephew left on Saturday, but we got to have DH's cousin and her family over on Saturday afternoon & evening.  They were in town for a football camp.  It's been a while since we've seen them, so it was a good chance to catch up (and show off TerraDactyl).  Sharing the love Saturday was also the first day of laundering the cloth diapers.  It went surprisingly well.  So far it's not nearly as gross as I expected it to be.  Of course, TerraDactyl isn't eating real food yet, so that may change.  We'll see.  Sunday, my dad and brother came down to visit.  I was surprised when my brother wanted to come down for a visit because I'd completely forgotten it was a holiday weekend!  He's usually pretty busy with work.  But my brother hadn't seen TerraDactyl yet and he was impatient to meet her.  While dad and my brother were getting their quality baby time in, DH and I spent most

It's really helpful having DH home on bonding leave.  I can hand TerraDactyl off to him while I eat breakfast and shower.  Yesterday while I was doing my thing, DH was collecting snuggle buddies for a family nap. The best place to nap Yesterday my mom, sister, and nephew came for a visit again.  Mom brought me a ton of chives and irises from her garden.  And since I was stuck feeding TerraDactyl, mom went ahead and planted them all for me, too! A box of mom flowers We also went on a walk around the neighborhood and spent some time playing at the local park.  Playground equipment has changed quite a bit since I was a kid.  There are some really fun pieces at this park.  Monkey bars that twist until they're vertical, an elevated merry-go-round that you hang from by your hands, and this weird two person spinny thing that requires teamwork (and fairly balanced masses) to rotate - it didn't work so well with me and my nephew on there... What a new playground l

For Mother's Day I got a baby book for TerraDactyl (thanks Janet!).  Yesterday, I figured I needed to start filling things out before I got too far behind.  I got us caught up, but man, there are some very difficult things about baby books. I got one of these "clean touch" hand print kits  because I thought that would be awesome to have in a baby book (instead of the hand tracing the book suggested).  The hospital did TerraDactyl's feet prints for us the day she was born, so I just needed to get her hands.  Seems simple.  It's SO not simple.  As soon as anything touches her hands, TerraDactyl makes a fist and tries to grab it.  DH and I tried half a dozen times to try and get a hand print and they all looked awful.  So bad it was a stretch to figure out it was a hand print.  And the whole time TerraDactyl was protesting LOUDLY.  So we gave up. An hour or so later, TerraDactyl fell asleep with her arms over her head, hands perfectly splayed for printing.  We de

TerraDactyl turned one month old yesterday! What??  Where did the time go? As a one-month-old, TerraDactyl had another pediatrician visit.  She is 10.0 lbs!  And 21.5 inches long.  Both measurements put her in the 75th percentile.  The doctor said she's looking healthy and we're doing a great job.  :) The doctor also gave us a sample of vitamin D drops and said to give TerraDactyl one a day.  So I mentioned that we'd been keeping the stroller cover over TerraDactyl when we go on walks and asked if we should open it up for some sun exposure.  The doctor said that since we're in Oregon, we don't get enough quality sun time to allow babies to produce their own vitamin D, BUT babies can sunburn within 15 minutes!  And since their skin is so sensitive, sunblock is not advisable.  She said to keep TerraDactyl covered, but be aware of the heat because heatstroke can be a big problem for babies. The weather was beautiful, so we went on a walk and then played fri

We had a busy day yesterday!  We had book club on the east side of Portland, so we combined multiple errands over on that side of town.  We ended up being out of the house for NINE hours!  All three of us!  It was crazy!  AND...  it was not a complete disaster! How did we pull THAT off? We accomplished all of our errands:  returning some stuff, I got some button up shirts for easier breast feeding, visiting with friends, and we made it to book club.  The only thing we did not manage:  buying a cake to share at book club.  I was kind of bummed about this.  I'd meant to bake a cake and ran out of time.  And then we didn't even have time to buy one!  Oh well.  Maybe I'll get around to it today. While we were out and about, I discovered that when the weather is reasonable, it's definitely preferable to change TerraDactyl's diaper in the trunk of the car (we have a hatchback) rather than in a store.  We also got some practice using our Tula baby carrier.  I like

After 7 years of marriage and things in life aligning, DH and I decided it was time to have a baby.  For the most part the pregnancy went fine.  I was nauseous the whole nine months, but nothing horrific.  Just occasional puking. Here's the short story: We found out the baby was breech and we were unsuccessful at flipping her, so we scheduled a cesarean for Monday 4/22/2019 (Earth Day!).   TerraDactyl  was born at 8:08am and she weighed 8lbs, 8 oz and was 21.5 inches long.  She was healthy and there weren't any complications.  Since it was a C-section, we were in the hospital until Thursday afternoon.   Tuesday 4/23/2019 Here's the saga: We found out  TerraDactyl  was breech at week 38.  She was already pretty big, but I had a lot of amniotic fluid as well, so the doc was hoping we could do a cephalic version (manually manipulate her into position for laboring).  We went to the hospital that night for the procedure (I couldn't eat for 8 hours